Vampire Tales II: The Return of the Toxic Memes!

Just weeks before Halloween, the deadly Vampire Tales rise from their coffins providing me with my costume for this year: Buffy, The Vampire Tale Slayer!

In her interview with Head Homegirl, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Today Show this morning, Ann Curry demonstrated her ignorance of current affairs by referring to the toxic memes circulating in June just after Hillary broke her elbow (and she WAS at work the whole time, by the way). She asked about that old marginalization story, that “Hillary in the Shadows” rumor that was circulating back in June.

In fact the seed was planted in The Hill on May 26, 2009 before Hillary’s accident by Dick(head) Morris in his risible (if you were watching the events of September 18-30 in New York City and on TV this year) The Incredible Shrinking Clintons. This effluent piece of fiction was pretty rapidly imbibed by Ben Smith at Politico who published on June 23, 2009, Hillary Toils in the Shadows an article that implied incredulity that Hillary exhibited loyalty to the administration that she had accepted to join. The article also alluded to her “diminished star power” – I don’t think so. Why does the MSM plug her interviews a week in advance? And what are the ratings?

But the icing on the cake was Tina Brown’s July 13, 2009, Obama’s Other Wife where Brown stated that it was time for Obama to let Hillary take off her burqa. Brown, who purportedly supported Hillary’s presidential candidacy began to show the cracks in her loyalty there. Hillary loyalists know that Hillary would not put on a burqa – physically (God forbid!) or figuratively because, well, nobody puts Baby in a corner.

These memes were addressed here , here, here, here, here, (This is getting boring, isn’t it? Sorry!), and (one more time) here on this blog. Ann Curry should have known how old and irrelevant the questions about Hillary’s fictional marginalization are. I watched Hillary with Susan Rice and Rahm Emmauel at the Genaral Assembly and Security Council events and had no doubt that I was looking at, not only a team player, but an MVP! What were you watching that day, Ann? Any of those days of UNGA and CGI? I was seeing a Clintonville Spectacular!

Madame Secretary was interviewed by Curry, who asked her expected questions on Afghanistan, the Middle East, etc. But then came “Do you still want to run for President?” Mind you, this question was set up by Curry, who claimed that there have been rumblings that Clinton has been “marginalized” in the Obama White House.

Clinton called that assessment “absurd.”

She also said she does not want to run for President, but is actually looking forward to retirement.

Hillary’s purportedly lingering presidential ambition has become somewhat of a theme promulgated by media heavyweights, none bigger than Tina Brown, now with the Daily Beast website. In fact, the folks at the site immediately put up that interview on their site today.

Brown is writing a book on Hillary (and Bill) called The Clinton Chronicles, due out next year. I’m not the first person to speculate that Brown is using the power of her website to perpetuate this drama about the Secretary of State somehow being frustrated by a lack of power in the administration. (Didn’t Brown write earlier this year something about “It’s time to let Hillary take off her burqa?” Yes, she did).

The theory (which some hardcore Hillary supporters still believe) goes that a disgruntled Hillary will end up taking on Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2012.

When asked point blank if she was thinking of running for president (not against Obama, but just at some point in her lifetime after coming close to winning the Democratic nomination in 2008), Clinton responded, ” I’m looking forward to retirement at some point.”

One would think this would end the speculation, and we could get on to all of the issues that Clinton herself is working on internationally as the chief diplomat in this crazy world. But nah, it’s more fun to think she’s still bitter at losing the nomination, when in fact her job gives her an incredible amount of power.

So I have to ask why I am sitting up (AGAIN) at one in the morning in effing OCTOBER with my shield still raised against this meme along with its corollary that an angry Hillary will raise a party revolt? (She’s not angry, folks! She’s working too hard, FOR US, to entertain that emotion in that quadrant). The hidden answer emerges: because Tina Brown has a book to hawk.

Yes. That’s it. That’s the reason. Cheap, isn’t it?

-Love to all and have a Happy and Safe Halloween,

Buffy

P.S. You seriously did not believe that was was going to end this without a picture of the Head Homegirl looking happy, gorgeous, and effective, did you?

P.P.S. Given the huge pre-release fanfare Today gave (for a week in advance of release) to Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, two questions:
1. Who is publishing Tina Brown’s book? Dan Brown’s is Doubleday.
2. What is the connection between Doubleday and G.E. or NBC?

It will be interesting to see what kind of publicity Today gives Tina’s opus!

11 Responses

You have a gift for sifting through crap and making sense of it. Thank God, because this meme is both idiotic and taxing. Are these other people so dissatisfied in their own professions that they have to rag on someone who’s happy for fun? As Bill said of Maureen Dowd, “[they] must live in mortal fear that there’s somebody’s in the world living a healthy and productive life.” They really must be, for how else would they sell books?

Even if she *were* planning to run, it’s not like she would say so and the media know that. I’d love to see another President Clinton but right now, lets let her focus on her work as SOS, which is a job she clearly a) loves and b) is brilliant at- the woman is a gift to diplomacy, particularly after 8 years of having the Bush neoconservatives alienate almost every ally the US has.

That Dick Morris article served as the template for the future media themes. But no one has been trying to keep them in the spotlight as much as Tina Brown.

Now that I know she’s writing a book, when I go back and read her articles about Secy Clinton ( and that ridiculous TV commentary Brown gave on Morning Joe where she opined that Hillary’s “outburst” in Kenya was due to her being hot, tired and “feeling fat”), it is so OBVIOUS that Brown is trying to peddle her book. I have a feeling that if the book covers Hillary’s first few months as SOS(and I’m sure it does, why else write it? There’s already a ton of Clinton books around), Brown’s manuscript probably included the media’s wishful thinking that Obama and Hillary would be in a state of perpetual campaign angst and constant conflict- the whole team of rivals spin. Imagine how disappointed Tina Brown must have been when a key part of her book turned out to be totally false?

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